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A Few Words about Salt

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

It’s almost impossible to discuss sauces without mentioning sodium chloride. Salt is so important that the very words “sauce” and “salsa” (not to mention “sausage,” “salary,” and “salubrious”) are derived, ultimately, from the Latin “sal,” for salt. It is so basic that the Cynic, Antiphanes, was quoted in The Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus: “Of the relishes which come from the sea we always have one, and that day in, day out. I mean salt.” (Book 9, p. 161)

It’s not a coincidence that Matthew 5:13-16, has Jesus saying: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” We are nothing if we’re not “worth our salt”—and neither are our sauces.

This is not just a Western concept. The ancient Chinese had a saying: “Oh salt, he is a General in the Chinese cuisine” … This saying, used earlier but recorded by Ban Gu during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 CE), shows the importance of salt in all sauces.

Salt crystals bring cultural meanings and give people food choices in sauce manufacture. Salt supplements enhance each sauce, and Chinese food preparation reflects people's affection for sauce and salt in their lives. In China, people do not get their salt from a salt shaker. They get theirs using many different sauces as they prepare their dishes. Thus, in China, salt and sauce are great partners.(Zhou Hongcheng).

Salt is essential to life for all of us (animals travel miles just for a chance to lick soil containing even a trace of salt). However, for anyone afflicted by hypertension, too much salt can be dangerous. Fortunately, excess salt is eliminated by the kidneys of healthy people, so—for them, at least—warnings about NaCl’s dangers should be taken with a grain of you-know-what.

—

This excerpt from Sauces Reconsidered: Aprés Escoffier (Rowman & Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy, 2019), and the illustration above—which is not part of the book—are protected by copyright, and may not be republished in any form without prior permission.

Food Sites for September 2019

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Black coffee... writing’s rocket fuel.

It’s almost September, as we write, so it’s still hot... but we can sense what’s coming. Fortunately, before the grim part of the year arrives, we get to celebrate the bounty of the harvest. Our gardens (or farmers’ markets) are gloriously replete with fresh produce... produce we won’t see again for a long time (unless it’s a pale substitute, picked someplace far, far, away).

On the off-chance that you aren’t already convinced that caffeine is essential to our production of (often excess) verbiage, gulp down a few cups from On the Table’s culinary quote collection):

A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. Paul Erdos

Coffee: we can get it anywhere, and get as loaded as we like on it, until such teeth-chattering, eye-bulging, nonsense-gibbering time as we may be classified unable to operate heavy machinery. Joan Frank

As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move... similes arise, the paper is covered. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Coffee isn’t my cup of tea. Samuel Goldwyn

GarySeptember, 2019

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our hat to Cara De Silva), thanks, and keep them coming!

PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

(Barry Smith explain, in the Proceedings of Wine Active Compounds 2008, why the flavor of wines can vary—even if they contain the same flavor compounds—"because of differences in their thresholds of perception”)

Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.

Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our books:

The Resource Guide for Food Writers(Hardcover)
(Paper)(Kindle)(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)

The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #227 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author’s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.

Roll Magazine has published “Zhōng Guó,” a more civilized account of more recent over-indulgence. It involves some of the best dim sum available within 100 miles (and a shopping trip to our favorite Asian Supermarket).

While almost everything we’ve published (so far) has been about food, we’ve accumulated several unpublished books that are not. Finding an agent for the odd mixture of short stories, essays, novels, and poems that litter our hard drive is daunting. We’ve started self-publishing the backlog as Kindle books. Our first one is How to Write a Great Book. As you might guess, it’s not really a how-to book. What it is a tongue-in-cheekiness look at how the great writers actually wrote theirs.

He chopped up peppers, mixed them with vinegar and Avery Island salt, put the mixture in wooden barrels to age and funneled the resulting sauce into secondhand cologne bottles. James Conaway(on the invention of Tabasco)

They used to have a fish on the menu that was smoked, grilled and peppered. They did everything to this fish but pistol-whip it and dress it in Bermuda shorts. William E. Geist

It doesn't matter who you are, or what you've done, or think you can do. There's a confrontation with destiny awaiting you. Somewhere, there is a chile you cannot eat. Daniel Pinkwater

GaryAugust, 2019

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our hat to Alan Lake), thanks, and keep them coming!

PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.

Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our books:

The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Hardcover)
(Paper)
(Kindle)(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)

The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #226 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author’s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.

A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually waste away, and eventually die. Mark Twain

After a few months’ acquaintance with European “coffee” one’s mind weakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich beverage of home, with it’s clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it, is not a mere dream after all, and a thing which never existed. Mark Twain

GaryJuly, 2019

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our hat to Cynthia Bertelsen), thanks, and keep them coming!

PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.

Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our books:

The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Hardcover)
(Paper)
(Kindle)(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)

How to Serve Man:
On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating(Kindle)

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

______________

The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #225 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author’s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.